Hedge of Thorns: Charcoal
Wind snapping the canvas against the poles wakes me. There’s a crick in my neck, and I taste charcoal. Charcoal. I laugh until I ache so much I can’t sit up. The inner walls of the blind, and the tents at home, are blank, and I’m camped in an endless supply of charcoal. If I didn’t have crucial things to do, I could sketch in the blind for hours.
Though I leave the upwind pegs and support rods in position until last, decamping is no picnic. I roll a piece of charcoal into the fabric to take home. If it pulverizes during the journey, fine. I’ll collect the powder from the creases.
There’s no cloud cover today, and heat ripples rise from the blackened terrain. My pack straps chafe, and even with the shade from dad’s hat, I’m squinting. Maybe some food will help. I open the zipper and pull out the bag of biscuits. I fumble the first one, and it lands, open, jelly-side-down, in the soot. Nope, they’ll get packed away before I waste another one.
I hike on, force myself to ignore the heavy canteen sloshing against my right hip. Burnt over as the land is, there is no shortage of gnomons to tell me the passing time. Two hours of steady marching brings me to the far edge of the burn zone, where I open the full canteen and take a long swig.
The meadow opens and descends. The familiar two-track is empty, as breeze flattens the grasses. I stay on my northward heading, toward the river that enters the upper end of Riffe Lake.
Farther down hill, past a thicket, I spot a grazing mule. Its pack frame is askew, and the lead rope dangles as the animal walks. Nothing near my feet looks any more desirable than what it already chews.
I let the rope harness drop, leaving my poles and gear on the two-track. As I cut across toward the mule, it swivels an ear, but keeps eating. Another step, and my boot lands on the far end of the lead rope. I crouch and take hold. When I stand again, the mule snorts.
She’s a jenny, and odds are high that that’s her name as well. “Easy, Jenny. Walk this way.” Backing toward the thicket, I tug the lead. She must be satisfied, because she follows.
Has she been broken to ride? I have no idea, but I can straighten out the skewed pack frame. “There’s a girl,” I whisper. The jenny doesn’t fill her belly with air as I secure the cinch. My goods will be lighter than the usual loads of salt, so I retrieve the poles and gear.
I turn her north, toward the river. It’s running high from the rains that extinguished the fire. Pulling out some extra rope, I put a few more turns around my willow poles and tie myself to a ring on Jenny’s pack frame.
“Come on, mule, let’s go to Glenoma.” I walk her into the water, and soon we’re swimming. We clamber out, dripping, and make good time. The mule takes the old scenic road’s crumbly conditions in stride. When I come upon a spring-fed waterfall, I let Jenny drink from the pool, and refill my empty canteen. Munching a biscuit, I pass the Glenoma city limits sign.
Hedge of Thorns: Charcoal is an episode of a serialized short story that usually posts on Friday.
Check the menu on this blog for other, previously posted serialized stories, here.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman
Krystine Kercher